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Product Description
This is a magical novel of a Chinese immigrant's coming to terms with himself, his marriage, and America--and the unlikely moral force that guides his life.
Chai is middle-aged, a disillusioned formed Red Guard who escaped China for Hong Kong and then America, where he works in New York as a banker. He and his wife, Ding, are the parents of an infant and enjoy a contented marriage; he develops a fond obsession with President Calvin Coolidge, the taciturn New Englander whose wry wit and wisdom delights Chai. One day, a chance discovery leads him astray: He learns that a lover from his youth is now in Boston, living with her husband and their son. The son is Chai's very image, and the staid banker is inflamed by the implications of the resemblance. Confused by his emotions, he becomes determined to revive the affair. How Ding schemes to win back her wayward husband--and teach him the necessary truths about love--forms the plot and beguiling conclusion to John Derbyshire's tale.
Amazon.com Review
John Derbyshire took an interesting risk with this first-person novel written in the voice of Chai, a former Red Guard from Northeastern China who fled his strife-ridden country by swimming to Hong Kong, eventually making his way to the United States. Happily married and living in Long Island, he has developed an obsession for Calvin Coolidge, whose low-key, laissez-faire approach to government makes him sound to Chai like the ideal Confucian leader. Through Chai, Derbyshire offers insights on the difference between China, where citizens are crushed by the weight of a long and enduring history, and the United States, where a relative lack of history gives its citizens the opportunity to endlessly remake themselves. All this is wrapped in a plot that has Chai flirting dangerously with thoughts of reviving a long-lost relationship with a woman from his past.
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